The picks for the Angoulême 2013: Official Selection have been announced; as widely noted, the lists in recent years are much more populist—THE WALKING DEAD, FABLES—than formerly. The published lists are all in French and we’re going to risk horrible danger by attempting to list the English titles of the English books.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.

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Oh, the Angoulême selections are very populist with foreign work, since it allows them to give an award for a “commercial” comic without giving it to a french-belgian popular comic, like those that keep the french comics industry viable, you know? No prizes for those guys! The Angoulême Jury seemingly believes that making money is enough of a reward. I have seem some of the voters saying that with those exact words…

So, I won’t be surprised if the “series” award (given to a continuing series, the elligible books are indicated on the listing above) goes for a foreign series. Of the nine books selected for that particular award, no less than five are foreign. Is the french-belgian comics industry so crappy that only FOUR “commercial” french books (of about 2000 published every year, not counting translations and alternative works) are worthy of an award?

On the positive side, at least they don’t confine foreign stuff to “ghetto” categories like the US awards. Just the name of those categories is already xenophobic enough to make my skin crawl. “Best AMERICAN edition of foreign material”? For crap’s sake!

Pedro: the reason is simple: they would only give an award to a foreign only it has been translatedd in a french edition, so that narrows it motsly to works that are already commercial enough to have a french edition.
As in anywhere else, a lot of the french/belgian stuff selling very well is sometimes of poor artistic quality. I would gladly see the prize go to something in need of a more commercial success than something already bathing in a large public success.
4 out of ten is already good. It’s an international festival , remember? At the Cannes film festival, there is way less french movies in the whole selection.

And y²ou would be surprised to know what some big editors are thinking of US comics. I remember a very short discussion with a big french editor, who denied publishing any US comics, even as I pointed out to her they do. But hey, for her, because they published it, it stopped being US comics in name, that was something more….

And the commercial french stuff being of poor artistic quality is compared to what standards? The best-selling manga outside Japan is Naruto, the best-selling US comic is either Avengers or Justice League, depending on which renumbered more recently. The best-selling italian comic is Tex. On the other hand, the best-selling heartless, horribly commercial, non-artistic french-language comic is, well, Titeuf. The only one of the list done by its original creator without an army of assistants, by the way. Which of them is the best?

The french (and belgian) have the very best mainstream comics in the world. And certainly the only ones not done by “assembly line” creators on a grueling schedule to serve a publisher’s bottom line. The next Asterix book, a book that is going to sell MILLIONS worldwide no matter the quality, was delayed a year because the already fully-drawn book was considered of poor quality and scrapped, with the book having to be redrawn by another penciler. Would that happen with one of the works mentioned above? Or would the publishers would just look at the finished work, say “it’s good enough, we’ll do better next time” and publish it anyway? I don’t see that happening outside France…

Of course there are better alternative books out there than most of the mainstream stuff. But in such porportion as to make a commercial french comic a rarity on those listings? Specially since the best creators tend to become fairly sucessful themselves (just look at Christophe Blain, for example)? No way.

The best seeling Us comics would not be Avenger or JLA but Walking Dead or even Whimpy Kid .
Well yes, I would say that Titeuf is a good exemple of the mediocrity of the best seeling french bandes dessinées. We have, for exemple, tons of heroic fantasy series looking identical. the green seems always greenier somewhere else but really, that’s not paradise here. Us comics have a variety in graphic styles that we do not have here. I see some nice french talents working in the US who would not have been able to make a living here because their style would not have worked here. Bande dessinée is perhaps a noble lady in France, but an old one, not open to innovations.

If Wimpy Kid is a comic, friggin’ Little Prince would be the best-selling comic in the world.

I do see a much bigger stylistic variation in french comics than in US ones. Frankly, the only people ever I have seen complaining about Bande Dessinée are, well, french. Even the belgians are (rightly) proud of their comics heritage…